James Patterson - #1 Suspect

Siobhan pulled away from me but gripped my arms tightly as she looked up at my face.

“You really did love her, didn’t you, Jack? So why didn’t you do the right thing by her?”

“I thought I did. I set her free.”

Del Rio’s office smelled of pepperoni pizza.

It was after nine, and he and Cruz had been working on the Beverly Hills Sun murder all day and now well into the night, comparing and contrasting the five murders that had been committed in California hotels in the past year and a half.

The first two killings had been six months and a hundred miles apart, so no one thought they were linked.

Victim number one, Saul Cappricio, was found strangled in Jinx Poole’s San Diego hotel. Victim number two, Arthur Valentine, was discovered decomposing at the Seaview, a third-rate hotel in LA.

By the time the third victim, Conrad Morton, had been found garroted in the San Francisco Constellation, also a Poole hotel, the cops were looking for a connection-but even with several police departments involved, or maybe because three departments were involved, no viable suspect had turned up.

To date, five businessmen, including Maurice Bingham, ages thirty-five to fifty-one, had been strangled with various types of ligatures in their hotel rooms. The men had not worked for the same companies; all had different occupations, lived in different cities. Three were married and two were not.

Right now, Del Rio was at one computer cross-checking phone logs. Cruz was at a second computer, examining credit card charges.

Cruz said, “Bingham used the same escort service as Valentine, who also charged up six hundred bucks for two hours of patty-cake.”

Del Rio leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. “All of them used hookers. Not the same service, though. Is that a lead or is that just what road warriors do?”

“I feel a business trip coming on,” said Cruz.

“Crap. Me too.”

“It’s a lead,” Cruz said. “The escort services are a lead, not a coincidence. Maybe a hooker with a thrill for the kill is moving from one place to the other.”

Del Rio could see how the next few days were going to go: interviewing prostitutes and johns and widows. He turned off his computer and threw the pizza box into the trash. He put on his jacket.

A list of escort service names and numbers chugged out into the printer tray.

Del Rio said, “Get the lights, will you, Emilio? I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning at eight. We’ll stop first for coffee.”

Mitch Tandy was poking around the side of the house, looking for anything out of place. He wanted to find something tangible that could link Jack Morgan to the Molloy murder.

He thought about the glove in the O. J. Simpson investigation, found near Simpson’s property line. The glove was conclusive evidence, but through a freak of prosecutorial incompetence, it had ended up helping the defense.

If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.

The Simpson investigation had been the shame of the LAPD.

Never mind. This was today.

Ten guys from the crime unit were out on the beach. Divers were doing their thing in the shallows, looking for metal. Inside, CSIs were going over the house again.

Jack Morgan was smart, but he wasn’t perfect. And if he’d overlooked anything in his cleanup of the crime scene, Tandy was sure something that could indict him would be found.

Tandy heard Ziegler call out to him.

“I’m over here,” he answered.

Ziegler joined Tandy where he stood inside the stucco fence that separated Jack Morgan’s house from the raging river that was the Pacific Coast Highway.

Tandy asked, “Find anything?”

“No.”

Tandy said, “He leaves his spunk in her. Doesn’t even use a rubber. That’s risky behavior. Like suicidal.”

“Or it’s his brother’s spooge.”

They’d been over this before. The complication of twin brothers with identical DNA. The kind of thing that could introduce “reasonable doubt” into a jury deliberation. When they’d interviewed Tommy, he’d had an alibi for the time of the murder. His wife said he was home. Swore it. Unshakably.

Still, she could have been lying.

“Tommy or Jack. It was one of them. And only Jack has a motive.”

Ziegler said, “What’s that over there?”

“What?”

Ziegler pointed at a disturbance in the mulch at the base of a bougainvillea vine, hidden in the shade of the fence.

Tandy used his foot to push away the pine bark.

For a long moment, they both stared.

“I’ll get the camera,” Ziegler said.

Tandy nodded, stooped down, and continued to stare. This was the evidence they needed. The rush was indescribable. It was why, with all the endless footwork, dead ends, and bureaucratic hassles, he just loved being a cop.

Moments like this one.

The idiot had left the smoking gun behind.

I headed into my office at eight the next morning, still with a headache pounding like a jackhammer into a spot directly behind my right eye.

Cody was on the phone, but when I passed his desk, he held up his hand, signaling me to wait. He said into his headset mic, “Yes, sir. I’ll see if he’s in.”

He scribbled on the back of an envelope, “Chf Fescoe.”

“I’ll take it,” I said.

I went to my desk, snatched the phone off the hook, and said, “Mick?”

“Jack. This is a heads-up. Call your lawyer.”

“What happened?”

“Tandy and Ziegler found your gun.”

His words were like a fastball to the gut. I felt sick. I lost focus. My mind skipped over the events of the past three days as I tried to make sense of what he was saying.

Words came out of my mouth. “Found it where?”

“In your front yard. Buried under a vine.”

“ Planted, you mean. I reported it missing the night Colleen was killed.”

“I understand that, Jack. Fact is, it’s your gun, a custom Kimber, registered to you. Your prints are on it.”

“Only my prints?”

“Yes.”

I sat down. Cody brought in my Red Bull, set it down on a coaster that he positioned just so. It took him a little too long to leave. I stared at him until he exited and closed the door behind him.

“Jack?”

“I’m still here, Mickey. Say again. Where exactly did they find the gun?”

“Under some mulch, just inside your gate. Your Kimber is a. 45, same caliber as the slugs that killed Colleen Molloy.”

“The killer used gloves,” I said. “That’s why only my prints are on the gun. He left it where the cops would find it.”

“I hear you. Ballistics is running a comparison now,” said my friend the police chief, not committing himself. I pictured him: a big man, six-four, wide smile, me standing with him and Justine six months ago, cameras flashing and Mickey Fescoe thanking us for catching a killer.

He’d certainly trusted me then.

Fescoe’s voice softened. “Are the slugs taken from the victim a match to your gun, Jack?”

“Maybe. Probably. I still didn’t kill her. If I wanted to get rid of my gun, would I actually be that dumb? Mick. I’m asking you. Would I really bury the murder weapon outside my front door?”

“Call your guy Caine. Do what he tells you.”

“Thanks for calling, Mick.”

“No problem. Don’t leave town.”

“I’m staying at a nice hotel. Got everything I want right there.”

“Are you okay?”

“What? Sure. I’m okay for a guy who is being set up to take the rap for a murder I didn’t commit. I’m absolutely fine.”

“I’ll take you out to dinner when this is all over,” Fescoe said.

I told him it was going to be a pricey meal.